Vehicles that are stolen are becoming easier to recover, due to advances in tracking technology that provide coordinates and other information when a vehicle is stolen. Most of the technology, however, is designed to recover the vehicle and not to necessarily catch the thief, leaving the thief free to steal additional vehicles.
Unless the thief is present when the vehicle is recovered, there is a decreased likelihood of catching the thief, as the thief may have wiped down the vehicle of trace evidence, requiring law enforcement to rely on alternative means, such as local video surveillance, to try to identify the thief. This can be especially difficult if the vehicle is joy-ridden, meaning it was only stolen for the purpose of a brief ride, typically leaving little evidential trail and almost always ensuring the thief is long gone by the time the vehicle is recovered, as the thief may only be present in the vehicle for a matter of minutes.